Verbprocess

Verbprocess is a term used in linguistic theory to refer to any set of operations that targets a verb in order to modify its meaning, voice, aspect, mood, or argument structure. It is not a single grammatical category found in all languages, but an umbrella label for a family of processes that attach to or otherwise alter verb stems. The concept is used to describe both morphological and syntactic changes that affect verbs, and it often appears in discussions of typology, derivation, and valency.

The range of verbprocesses includes both morphological and periphrastic or syntactic mechanisms. Morphological verbprocesses involve affixation, reduplication, suppletion, or other changes directly on the verb root. Periphrastic verbprocesses use auxiliary verbs, clitics, or separate words to create new verbal meaning or to alter argument structure. Subtypes commonly discussed under the umbrella of verbprocess include causativization (changing a verb to express a causing event), applicatives or benefactive modifications (altering the valency or participant structure), voice changes (such as passive or antipassive), aspectual or temporal marking, and mood or polarity adjustments.

Cross-linguistic realisations of verbprocess vary widely. Some languages encode these effects through affixes on the verb, others rely on auxiliary constructions or sentence-level particles, and some employ multi-verb sequences to express the same meaning. The semantic and syntactic scope of a given verbprocess can affect one or more arguments and may interact with phenomena such as transitivity, reversibility, or event structure.

See also: derivational morphology, inflection, valency-changing processes, voice, aspect, mood, language typology. The term is primarily a theoretical label used to discuss how verbs are modified across languages and in computational models of grammar.